Context Will Be Key With the Chiefs’ 2022 Defense

KC's defense has a brutal schedule and a lot of new faces, bringing different levels of expectations.

“Just be average."

The sentiment of the Kansas City Chiefs' defense just being average has dominated the thought around the unit since Patrick Mahomes stormed onto the NFL stage in 2018. With the Chiefs sporting an elite offense every year under Patrick Mahomes, the defense doesn't need to carry the team for the Chiefs to be a Super Bowl-caliber team.

The year the Chiefs won the Super Bowl showed that this form of roster construction was a recipe for success. During the 2019 regular season, the Chiefs' offense was third in offensive DVOA and fifth in points scored. On defense, the Chiefs were 14th in defensive DVOA and seventh in points scored against.

It wasn't just the stat sheet that showed what the Chiefs’ defense was capable of that year. During the Chiefs’ playoff run, the defense had quality performances. For the Chiefs to score a touchdown on seven straight drives to comeback against the Texans, the defense had to clamp down as well. Tennessee Titans running back Derick Henry averaged just 3.6 yards per carry in the AFC Championship Game. The defense made many key stops in the Super Bowl while Mahomes was struggling.

The Chiefs' defense, by all accounts, was average to above-average when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl. Heading into the 2022 season, it feels like more will need to break the Chiefs' way to have the defense reach the heights of that 2019 unit.

The main reason expectations for the Chiefs' defense should be tempered is just how new and young the players on defense are. The only multi-year, proven starters on the defense are on the defensive line: Chris Jones, Derrick Nnadi and Frank Clark. Players like Rashad Fenton, L’Jarius Sneed and Willie Gay are multi-year veterans but seem in line to get the most snaps they have had so far in their Chiefs career. Other players on defense are new to the team or have one year or less of NFL experience, such as Justin Reid, Nick Bolton and Trent McDuffie.

All of these new, young faces lead to a defense that has a lot of promise but also a lot of question marks. The ceiling for the Chiefs' defense is high enough to reach the levels of the 2019 defense, but the floor is near the bottom of the league. It isn't crazy to think that Kansas City's defense might have the widest range of outcomes in the NFL due to the sheer reliance on youth and/or inexperience.

It will be difficult for NFL media and fans alike to determine if the defense is performing well, as traditional metrics could lie about true performance. The reason why? The Chiefs are playing a schedule full of offensive juggernauts.

The schedule contains offenses poised to be top ten units in the NFL with, the Chiefs playing against the Los Angeles Rams, Cincinnati Bengals, Buffalo Bills, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Chargers. Even the other offenses on their schedule are brutal, featuring games against the Arizona Cardinals, Las Vegas Raiders (twice), Denver Broncos (twice), Indianapolis Colts, Tennessee Titans and San Francisco 49ers. The first eight games of the Chiefs' 2022 schedule are against a team listed above. It's a brutal gauntlet of games, which means a couple of things for this new-look Chiefs defense.

The first reality of the Chiefs' defense is that it will be a trial by fire. The defense will make a lot of mistakes early in the year and, considering the offenses the Chiefs will play, the mistakes may lead to some less-than-stellar results. This is magnified by the fact that Steve Spagnuolo-led defenses almost always start slow and then get better as the year goes on. This happened in 2019 and 2021.

Even if the defense was performing well at the beginning of the year, the offenses the Chiefs are playing mean that the defense will give up more raw stats no matter what. It would be exciting if the Chiefs' defense held the Chargers to only 10 points, but that's unrealistic. Considering this, advanced statistics like DVOA will be vital to gauge the Chiefs' defense's true standing in the league by the midpoint of the season. There is a very real possibility that Spagnuolo's defense is a bottom-five unit in points given up, but measures somewhere around 18th best by DVOA. While the Chiefs are playing the Bills, other defenses are playing the Chicago Bears.

All of this is to say that the Chiefs' defense might start slow, it might be ugly, and the group might be low on many lists come Week 8. That shouldn't be a surprise, as it's a defense in transition. Understand that the rookies, new faces and old vets like need time to jell and learn together. Facing the aforementioned brutal stretch of offenses while the defense will still be learning is going to be rough but in the back half of the season, the defense will be battle-tested.

As the entirely too serious proverb for this situation says, it is always darkest before the dawn.